Avowed: Best Kai companion build

Wondering what the best build is for Kai, your first companion in Avowed? You'll meet Kai, a coastal aumaua (that means semi-aquatic fish folk), shortly after you touch down in the first main area of Avowed. With a sharp blade and a powerful blunderbuss at his disposal, Kai quickly takes up the role of a reliable frontliner in your party, and his at-ease personality and deep-as-gravel voice are both very endearing.

You'll rely on Kai regularly as you explore the Living Lands to deliver melee strikes and soak up enemy hits. In this guide, we'll list the best companion build for Kai to ensure that this blue bro always has your back.

Avowed: Best Kai companion build

Each companion in Avowed has four main abilities, and each ability has a speciality that you can invest a point into. Kai's best build is as follows:

• Fire and Ice (Extra Powder)
• Unbending Defense (Iron Will)
• Leap of Daring (Leap of Pride)
• Second Wind (Soothing Wind)

This list does not include Firestarter, another one of Kai's abilities, since it's always on your in-game radial menu. Firestarter lets you use Kai's blunderbuss to deal Fire damage to brambles and other obstacles in your way. Dealing Elemental and Explosive damage is important for traversing Avowed's world, so it makes sense to consider Firestarter a no-brainer.

Fire and Ice (Extra Powder)

Fire and Ice (10 second duration, 40 second cooldown) is one of Kai's top skills that you should invest in, as it lets your comrade fire a big blast from his blunderbuss. The blast deals high stun to an enemy and taunts them for 10 seconds, and is very handy for getting someone off your back in the middle of combat or lining them up for a coordinated attack. If you're packing a firearm as well, following up Fire and Ice with your own shot is fine fun.

I've gone with Extra Powder for the specialisation here, as it ignites the target to inflict additional Fire damage over time, which is never a bad thing. You could potentially go with Pure Lead as well, which increases the amount of stun dealt by Fire and Ice, but I prefer inflicting fire, since so many of Avowed's enemies are susceptible to Elemental damage.

Unbending Defense (Iron Will)

Unbending Defense (30 second duration, 75 second cooldown) lets Kai regenerate his health and increase damage reduction by 25%, which is useful as he's often in the fray and tends to be the first companion to go down. It can be hard to find your companions in the middle of a hectic battle to revive them, so some self-sufficiency is much appreciated.

It's a fair toss up between Iron Will (which increases Unbending Defense's damage reduction by 50%) and Indomitable Spirit (which increases Unbending Defense's health regeneration), but I've gone with Iron Will because of Dream Touch, a Godlike ability that most players will obtain in Avowed's early hours that serves as an AoE heal. Unbending Defense plus Dream Touch (along with Second Wind, another Kai ability described below) usually bumps up your friend's health in a pinch just fine, hence my decision to prioritise damage reduction. If you don't end up with Dream Touch, though, you may want to pick Indomitable Spirit.

Leap of Daring (Leap of Pride)

Leap of Daring (25 second duration, 60 second cooldown) sends Kai up into the sky, crashing down on whichever enemy you're targeting. This is a grand skill that also stuns and taunts all nearby foes. Use it to take the heat off of you and redirect Kai's attention to the enemy of your choice.

Leap of Pride, which doubles the area of effect for Leap of Daring, is the way to go for this one, since it turns this ability into more of an AoE skill that's great for wrecking both mobs and bosses. The other options at your disposal, Leap of Faith and Leap of Conviction, give temporary health and bonus attack damage depending on how many enemies you hit with Leap of Daring. That's fine, but as I mentioned before, Leap of Daring is often great against single bosses, so it's better to just double the area of effect.

Second Wind (Soothing Wind)

Second Wind (120 second cooldown) is a passive ability that lets Kai revive himself by restoring 50% of his max health whenever he's reduced to zero. Use this alongside Unbending Defense to ensure that Kai stays in the fray.

Soothing Wind is in my opinion the best pick for your specialisation, as it increases the amount of health restored by Second Wind to 75% of Kai's maximum health. The other options, Rallying Wind and Refreshing Wind, just give Kai additional attack speed and reset his ability cooldowns, respectively. Of those two, refreshing cooldowns is more useful, but I'd rather take the instant health increase above all else.

Kai's a good fella, so use his abilities well on the field. Now go take a peek at our other companion guides for Yatzli, Marius, and Giatta. If you're more interested in your personal build rather than companions, check out our best abilities guides for the Wizard, Ranger, and Fighter. All newbies setting out in the Living Lands should also read our Avowed beginner's guide and our guide on all Avowed Treasure Maps. For the fashion-inclined adventurer, perhaps our guide on how to transmogrify will also be of interest.